Segments and Segment States

Segments are objects encapsulating sequenced sound data. The data might be a MIDI sequence, a wave, a collection of information originating in a segment file from DirectMusic Producer, or a piece of music composed at run time from different components. In general, a segment is a piece of music or other sound that is played as a unit.

A segment can be played as a primary segment or secondary segment. Only one primary segment can be played at a time. Secondary segments are typically short musical motifs or sound effects played over the primary segment.

Segments originating as MIDI or wave files sound the same each time they are played, unless the application performs some special processing on them. A segment authored in DirectMusic Producer, on the other hand, can contain different musical patterns and other information that allows variation each time the segment is played.

Segments can combine different kinds of data such as waves, patterns, chord changes, band changes, and tempo changes. Each type of data is encapsulated in a track object. Applications written in Visual Basic do not have access to track objects. Segments can also contain information about the audiopath on which they should be played, including special effects.

DirectMusic Producer segments can also contain references to other loadable musical components. For example, it is possible to obtain a band object from a segment authored with that band.

Each time a segment is played, a segment state object is created. The application can use this object to get information about the state of playback and the audiopath for that instance of the playing segment.